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The song's music and lyrics were written by Roger Waters in critique of hypocrisy and greed within the music business. The song is more straightforwardly rock-oriented than the rest of the album, and is the only one on the album that starts abruptly (the other four either fade in or segue from the previous song). It begins with a churning riff played on electric guitar and bass and is filled out with additional guitar, electric piano and synthesizer parts to create a rock texture.

"Have a Cigar" concludes with a guitar solo, which is briefly interrupted by a synthesizer filter-sweep sound effect as the music reduces in volume to tinny, AM radio-like levels. Finally, the song ends with the sound of a radio being dialled off-station; this effect is used as a transition to the title track, "Wish You Were Here".

The song's lead vocals are performed by Roy Harper. Both Waters and David Gilmour had each attempted to sing the song on separate takes, as well as on a duet version (available on the 2011 Experience and Immersion editions of Wish You Were Here), but they were unhappy with the results. Harper was recording his album HQ in Studio 2 of Abbey Road at the same time as Pink Floyd were working in Studio 3, and Roy Harper offered to sing the part as Gilmour had already provided some guitar licks for Roy ("...for a price").[7] The song is one of only two songs by the band which is not sung by one of their permanent members, the other being "The Great Gig in the Sky".

In his book Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd, author Mark Blake recounts that Gilmour had been unwilling to sing the lead vocal as he didn't share Waters' opinions, as expressed in the lyrics, on the nature of the music industry.[8] Waters has since said he dislikes Harper's version, saying he would have liked it to emerge "more vulnerable and less cynical", adding that Harper's version was too parodic while Gilmour loved Harper's vocal delivery and called it the "perfect version".[9]

The song was performed on the band's 1975 North American tours sandwiched in between the multi-part "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" with Gilmour and Waters singing lead. It was last performed by the band on the 1977 In the Flesh tour, as part of the Wish You Were Here set with Waters on lead vocals, Gilmour on backing vocals and rhythm guitar and Snowy White playing the guitar solos.

A lot of people think I can't sing, including me a bit. I'm very unclear about what singing is. I know I find it hard to pitch, and I know the sound of my voice isn't very good in purely aesthetic terms, and Roy Harper was recording his own album in another EMI studio at the time, he's a mate, and we thought he could probably do a job on it.

— Roger Waters, October 1975, Interviewed by Nick Sedgewick in the Wish You Were Here songbook[11]

"Have a Cigar" was a whole track on which I used the guitar and keyboards at once. There are some extra guitars which I dubbed on later, but I did the basic guitar tracks at one time.

— David Gilmour, October 1975, Interviewed by Gary Cooper in the Wish You Were Here songbook[11]

We did have people who would say to us "Which one's Pink" and stuff like that. There were an awful lot of people who thought Pink Floyd was the name of the lead singer and that was Pink himself and the band. That's how it all came about, it was quite genuine.

In 1992, the band Primus recorded a cover of the song and included it as the closing track to their Miscellaneous Debris EP.[16] Their version features a slight lyrical change: "The band is just fantastic, of the town you are the talk/Man, but who the hell's this guy they call Bob Cock?"

A free CD given with the October 2011 issue of UK music magazine Mojo features a cover version of "Have a Cigar" by John Foxx and The Maths.[23] This version was later announced by Mojo as 'not the finished version' and the correct version was offered as a free download from the website.[24]

Gov't Mule performed the song as part of their Dark Side of the Mule live album from 2008, which consisted of half original material, half Pink Floyd covers.[25][26]